Over the last thirty years, various Airlines and other transportation services have struggled to more efficiently serve their traveling clientele while maintaining profitability. One problem that travel providers often face is the uncertainty when deciding whether to add another alternative flight to serve a particular source and destination. That is, while a travel provider, such as an airline, can generally determine that adding a new flight path to a particular market might better serve the consuming public, it can be highly problematic to determine whether embarking on such an enterprise also would be beneficial to the airline.
In the airline industry, a “market” can refer to a specific pair of terminals representing a travel origin and a travel destination, and “market allocation” can refer to the process of allocating consumer demand for a specific market pair to the various possible routes that serve that market. For example, in the transportation industry, San Jose, Calif. (an origin) and Nashville, Tenn. (a destination) can represent a market pair (or simply “a market”), with a prospective “market allocation” including a distribution of passengers among three separate paths: a flight having a stopover in Chicago, Ill., a flight having a stopover in Minneapolis, Minn. and a flight having a first stopover in both Chicago, Ill. and Baltimore, Md. While the market allocation scenario above appears simple, the reality is that determining whether a direct San Jose to Nashville flight could be profitably added is highly problematic. Further, determining the appropriate price of such an added flight to maximize profits can be even more problematic. Accordingly, new computer-based methods and systems related to market allocation are desirable.